


in motion

by huphilpuffs



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: M/M, Motion Sickness, interactive introverts, vague descriptions of depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-08
Updated: 2018-06-08
Packaged: 2019-05-19 17:13:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14877965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/huphilpuffs/pseuds/huphilpuffs
Summary: Interactive Introverts, as told through motion sickness.





	in motion

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warning for descriptions of nausea (though no one gets sick) and mentions of depression and anxiety. Thank you to [obsessivelymoody](https://archiveofourown.org/users/obsessivelymoody/pseuds/obsessivelymoody%22) for beta'ing this for me.

They have a car.

It’s small, but ready for the tour. Phil can already imagine squeezing into it with five other people, Dan at his side in the middle row. The memories of TATINOF are still vivid, the constant clicking of Dan’s keyboard and chatter of their group as Phil stared out the window and watched the English countryside for hours.

He blinks the images away. This is a new moment, a whole new tour, even though nothing much has changed. Marianne’s still rambling about the itinerary and Dan’s still at his side, reaching down to take Phil’s hand in his.

“You nervous?”

Phil shrugs, but when Dan squeezes his fingers, he still says: “Yeah.”

There’s only a little while left until the tour starts, until they bring this big, new thing with them to countless people. And they’ve done it before, succeeded before, but the need for this to go well still weighs heavy on his shoulders.

And, well, Phil doesn’t really like cars all that much.

“It’ll be okay,” says Dan. “It’ll be great.”

He sounds like he believes it today. Phil can’t help but believe it too.

\---

They drive to Brighton.

Phil has a backpack at his feet. Dan’s laptop is still in its case, sitting on the van’s floor. Marianne is on her phone in moments, and everyone else is talking about how exciting it is to finally be on the road. Phil presses his head back against the seat and stares out the window almost the entire time.

Driving through London is the worst. Buildings stretch high above the roads, which twist and turn on their way out of the city, and Phil longs for a glimpse of the horizon to ground the spinning in his head. His fingers dig into the seat at the first prickle of nausea in his stomach.

Dan reaches over, annoyingly able to look anywhere in the moving car with no repercussions. 

“You can’t get sick before we even do the first show,” he says. 

Phil forces a smile. Marianne says something about how they’ll be out of the city soon. 

“I won’t,” he mumbles. 

Dan doesn’t respond. His hand lingers on Phil’s side of the car, wrapped around his wrist and pressing to some spot that’s supposed to help but never does, until the city fades away into grassy fields that ease Phil’s stomach.

\---

London feels like the scariest of the UK shows, and Phil spends the drive from Nottingham with his leg bouncing, unsure if the burning in his stomach is from the rumble or the car or the nerves prickling his spine.

He stares out the window, watching fields of green gradually turn into cities of grey. 

It’s weird to be going home, in the middle of everything. It’s barely been a week and already the constantly changing lifestyle of hotels and restaurants seems familiar, almost comfortable. When he closes his eyes, just long enough to feel the sway of the vehicle, he can imagine their bed back at home, every spot in the city that they stop by regularly.

And the pressure is back, an incessant need to do right by his city, to make it the best show he possibly can. 

His knee is bouncing even more. His stomach clenches. Phil shoves his head back against the seat, swallows, and tries to follow the straight line of the horizon with his gaze.

Dan’s toes nudge against his them, stopping the jerking of his leg with gentle comfort. Phil wishes he could turn to Dan for reassurance right now, but the nausea, however car related it may be, is too bad for him to tear his gaze from the window. 

Their feet stay pressed together in the middle of the vehicle for a long stretch of the drive.

And they’re only a little ways from the venue when Dan speaks for the first time.

“You know,” he says, “it’s too bad you can’t look at me.”

Phil hums, watching buildings flash by his window. “Why?”

“Because I just found the cutest video of a corgi ever,” says Dan. His voice is lilted and teasing, and Phil knows Dan’s just trying to take his mind off upcoming show and flurry of filming that will consume their short stop at home. 

He does end up turning to look at Dan, not to see the corgi video, but because sometimes he feels like Dan deserves to see the smile of appreciation he so often brings to Phil’s face.

“Bookmark it,” he says. “You’re showing me as soon as we get out of this bloody car.”

In the front seat, Marianne laughs.

\---

Sometimes, the stinging in his stomach isn’t Phil’s priority.

They’re driving to the Belfast airport, on route to London, and he’s noticeably not staring at the Irish town they’re driving through. He took a nausea pill back at the hotel after watching Dan sluggishly drag himself out of bed, pull on an outfit he put zero thought into, and leave without so much as eating breakfast.

He can never focus on himself when Dan’s like this.

Dan’s semi-staring at the screen of his laptop, though his eyes seem focused on something behind it. His fingers are plucking at the tears in his jeans and his shoulders look weighed down, suddenly. 

Phil had known it would happen. It happens a lot. Dan tends to dive head first into his projects, a passionate perfectionist with every idea executed perfectly in his mind. He pours all his energy into it, warm and brilliant and Phil  _ loves  _ seeing him like that, all but bursting with festering energy.

And then the project starts drawing to a close, and Dan crashes under the weight of his doubt and insecurity and the uncertainty of how he can possibly continue to be great from there. 

It happened after TATINOF.

Phil’s pretty sure it’s happening now.

The car jerks beneath them and, despite the medication in his system, Phil’s stomach clenches.

He wants to remind Dan how wonderful things are. Wants to remind him that the tour is far from over, that after Dublin they still have Europe and North America and Australia and Asia to go to. And that, after that, they still have plans. Maybe not as grand as world tour plans but  _ plans.  _ Good plans. 

But they’re in a car full of people. Marianne’s voice rings through it, and the people in the back are talking in hushed whispers, and Dan wouldn’t want his headspace to be laid out for all of them.

So Phil reaches over and nudges Dan’s foot with his own. He glances out the window. 

“Do you think we’ll see any wild jacksepticeye’s out here?” he says.

Dan’s laugh is dry. “He lives in Brighton, Phil.”

Phil ignores him. “Do you think we need like, a mating call or something?”

“Phil–”

He clears his throat, forces his worst, vaguely Irish accent. “ _ Top of the mornin’ to ya, laddies.” _

Dan laughs again, a little fuller, but still a little distant. Phil smiles at the white house they drive past.

Later, when they’re done driving and Phil’s stomach has calmed completely, they do it again: terrible accents for a clumsy Instagram story. Phil watches it back once, twice, three times, and focuses on how much more present Dan looks when he smiles.

\---

Planes are better.

They fly from Amsterdam to Moscow, and it’s easier, steadier. No potholes or hills or sharp turns. Dan has the window seat, because he likes staring out at the clouds. He’s calmer now, happier. A new leg of the tour has began and the incessant reminders that he needs to constantly be amazing have faded.

Dan stares out the window. Phil stares at Dan. 

He wishes he could take a picture of this, share it on his Instagram. But Dan’s social media detox is still intact, and Phil’s not keen on the idea of sorta breaking it with a sorta out of the ordinary photo on his own story, just for the sake of showing the world how pretty Dan is.

His phone stays in his pocket, and his hand drifts to rest on Dan’s thigh.

“You feeling okay?” says Dan, still staring at the clouds.

Phil leans forward and presses his chin to Dan’s shoulder so Dan can feel his nod. 

He’s spent a lot of tour so far staring out windows, but he finds himself staring at the clouds anyway.

\---

“I’m never eating again.”

Phil announces it halfway between Berlin and Warsaw. His fingers are curled in the fabric of his shirt, clutching at his stomach. He’s given up on looking out his own window, and is staring instead past Marianne’s head to where the road stretches in front of them.

“We can stop if you want,” says Marianne.

Phil shakes his head as much as he can without worsening the ever present spinning there. Dan’s staring at him as he does, brows furrowed as though he doesn’t already know how much Phil hates feeling like a burden.

They still have a few hours on the road. The last thing Phil wants to do is postpone their arrival.

“You shouldn’t have eaten so much,” says Dan, worry tinting his voice so subtly Phil’s not sure anyone else would notice.

“I’m never eating again,” Phil repeats.

He goes back to staring out his own window a few moments later, impatiently waiting for the dose of medication he took to kick in. It’s just as they pass an old looking house in the middle of nowhere that he hears Dan set his laptop aside, the shove of his hand into his pocket to retrieve his phone.

And then it’s in Phil’s face.

“You’re looking a little green, Philly,” says Dan. “Careful, you’re going translucent.”

Phil spares him and the iPhone camera half a glance before turning back to the window.

“This is what happens when Phil decides to eat two desserts before a car ride, guys.”

“Stop dessert shaming me.”

Dan’s arms fall then. Phil can see him from the corner of his eye as he slaps a filter on the stupid video, which is probably zoomed way too close on Phil’s too-pale face. 

“You need to go back on your social media detox,” he quips.

Dan chuckles. “Pretty sure you’re the one that needs a detox, mate.”

\---

The European tour ends in Sweden.

They go back to London the next day, and spend a week back at home.

It’s foreign again, the press of his own bed under Phil’s spine, filming gaming videos in the gaming room, filming an AmazingPhil video sitting on his blue and green duvet. Dan films one at his setup, too, with his sign in the background and a smile on his face.

They barely leave the house, ordering takeout for meals and sitting on their own sofa and taking advantage of the momentary privacy to be as grossly clingy as they need. 

Phil watches the way uncertainty at an ending draws at Dan’s features, and festers in his own anxiety about what is yet to come.

A week later, the American tour begins in Philadelphia.

\---

Phil spends the flight to America pressed against Dan’s side.

Marianne’s triple-checking all their plans for America, and a lot of their crew is dotted across the plane. Phil’s watching from his spot next to Dan as he explores Hyrule for the upteenth time. 

The buzz of something new is back, brilliant and happy. Dan’s smiling at the screen and Phil’s content to sit there, even though the flight is long, and simply exist in this space between what they’ve accomplished and what they’re about to do.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

Dan looks away from his Switch, brows furrowed. “The graphics? They’re amazing. You know I love them.”

Phil nods. He’s not sure if he even was talking about the video game, not sure what he was talking about. Clouds stretch outside the window. His stomach is calm, but there’s something fluttering happily in his chest. 

“Yeah,” he says. “I do.”

\---

The bus, at first, is the worst. 

There’s no horizon to look at when Phil’s sitting on a sofa, legs drawn up in front of the and face buried between his knees. He tries to ignore the sway of the bus, the way it jerks at every bump they hit. He groans against his jeans, slipping a hand between his thighs and his torso to press a warm palm to his aching stomach.

But the bus is also different. No one’s strapped into their seat. A lot of their crew mills around the place, playing cards at the table, leaning against the counter. 

And Dan sits next to him on the sofa.

His hand lands between Phil’s shoulders, smoothes along his spine. 

Phil tenses, needs to remind himself that the people around them  _ know.  _ Know that they’re together, and know that they can’t say anything about that fact.

“Do you want us to pull over?” asks Dan, a whisper against Phil’s hair.

He shakes his head, still folded in on himself. Part of him wonders if looking towards the floor is making all of it worse, but the idea of sitting up straight is entirely unappealing.

“Okay,” says Dan.

His hand keeps smoothing across Phil’s shoulders until his nausea meds finally start to help a bit.

\---

They’re in Florida when Phil asks them to pull over for the first time. 

If he wasn’t so focused on the incessant clenching in his stomach and trying to steady the unbalance in his head, Phil might have marveled at the fact that it took that long for the car sickness to get so bad. But instead, he sat on the sofa, hunched over the bin Dan wedged between his feet a few minutes ago.

He doesn’t get sick before they draw to a stop. 

Dan’s dragging him to his feet as soon as someone gets the bus door open, a hand looping around Phil’s shoulders. 

“Come on,” he says. “I hear fresh air helps.”

Fresh air doesn’t help. Florida’s too hot and the air feels like it clings to Phil’s skin. But walking does. Feeling the ground beneath his feet, steady, helps. Dan’s arms around him, helping him stand as the dizziness begins to subside, helps. 

“‘s hot,” Phil mumbles when Dan draws him closer. 

“Want space?”

He shakes his head, pressing his nose to Dan’s shoulder. It’s too hot. His collar clings to the back of his neck where, if they were home, Phil would probably press a cold washcloth. But when Dan’s fingers drift over the length of his spine, his other hand coming up to draw Phil’s hair away from his face, Phil decides this is best.

They stand like that for a while, on a side road in Florida, surrounded by sparse trees and hidden from the road by the tour bus. Until Marianne is popping out the door and reminding them they should get going soon, and Phil pulls away.

“You look less translucent,” says Dan. 

He’s smiling, but Phil can still see the unnecessary glint of worry in Dan’s eyes. 

“I feel better,” says Phil.

Dan nods. But still, he walks behind Phil as they return to the bus, as though he’s scared Phil will collapse. They return to the sofa, rumbling beneath them again. The bin, Phil notices, is wedged in a new corner, a little closer to where he spends most of their trips.

They start driving again.

Dan’s hand falls to rest on Phil’s knee. “You should take the stronger meds,” he says, “the ones the doctor gave you.”

Phil frowns. “They make me sleep.”

“We have a few hours until the show,” says Marianne.

Dan smiles. “And if they don’t wear off completely by then, you can just be loopy during the show.”

Anxiety prickles in Phil’s stomach at the idea, but he ends up taking the pill after the bus turns for the first time. Not long later, he falls asleep with Dan’s fingers combing his quiff away from his forehead.

\---

He gets used to the bus, eventually.

Sometime between Florida and Canada, he can stop watching the world flash outside windows, and doesn’t need as many doses of nausea medication. Some days, he can even take out his Switch, play for a little bit without feeling the tug of travel sickness in his stomach.

It’s better, this way.

They’re between Minneapolis and Milwaukee and Dan’s sitting next to them on their bed. There’s no windows to ground him and only a small dose of medication in his stomach and Phil’s head isn’t spinning, even as he stares at his Switch and loses a round of Mario Kart  _ again.  _

Dan sticks his tongue out at him as he passes the finish line. 

Phil says, “I hate you,” as he comes in second.

And for a moment, it almost feels like they’re back at home, and not in the midst of an international tour. Almost feels like everything is calm and organized and simple.

Dan leans over to kiss the pout off his face.

\---

They leave the bus behind in Vancouver.

“Is it bad that I’m gonna miss it a bit?” says Dan. His face is drawn, his hands curled up in the long sleeves of his jumper even as summer sun shines down on them. Phil frowns, and reaches over to brush his knuckles across the outside of Dan’s closed fist.

“I won’t,” he says. “I’m pretty sure it was trying to make me sick.”

Dan smiles, a little forced. “Pretty sure the doctor said that’s your inner ear, mate.”

“The doctor was working with the bus,” says Phil.

He watches as Dan laughs, a burst of happiness before a week that Phil knows will be difficult. Another ending, another leg of the tour done, and too much time to think about it will draw heavily at Dan’s mind. He presses his hand a little closer to Dan’s at the thought, a quiet  _ are you gonna be okay? _

Dan’s smile reaches his eyes, crinkles the corners just a bit. Phil wishes he could push onto his toes, kiss away the uncertainty lingering behind Dan’s features, but there are people mulling around and someone might see.

“Wanna get Starbucks after?” he asks instead.

The smile widens, growing brilliant at every unspoken implication.

A small reminder of the beginning, to draw their minds away from another successful end. 

Phil brushes his hand against Dan’s one last time, and watches Dan’s clenched fists unfurl into something less tense.

\---

The end of the tour seems to go by in a blur. 

One month of flights and shows and being tourists and more flights. They return to their favourite places in Australia, and make their way to some places they missed. Phil finally makes it to New Zealand, smiling as Dan recounts memories from the last time he’d been there. They make happy  _ together  _ memories in India that Phil will never let any glitch take from them.

Dan’s doubt has faded into contentedness, just for a little while longer, until the incessant questions about where his career is going and what he can make next start to weigh on his shoulders.

Phil’s anxiety about the tour has faded into constant excitement. 

They’re flying from Hong Kong to Mumbai, staring out the same window and smiling at the same sky.

Phil lets his hand drift onto Dan’s lap, laces their fingers together where nobody else will see.

“Excited?” he asks.

Dan nods. “It’s going to be good,” he says.

Phil nods, pressing his lips quickly to the round of Dan’s shoulder. 

_ It’s been good,  _ he doesn’t say, but he’s pretty sure Dan already knows. 

**Author's Note:**

> Check out the fic and come say hi on [tumblr](https://huphilpuffs.tumblr.com/post/174690403551/in-motion)!


End file.
